Strategic Planning: Budget & Fundraising

A budget is a forecast of all income and expenses, and helps your organization identify future financial needs and plan based on expected profit, expenses and cash flow. If an organization does not have the budget to support its strategic plan, the group needs to either modify its plan or find the financial means to support the plan. 

A budget is an estimation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time and is usually compiled and re-evaluated on a periodic basis. Budgets can be made for a person, a group of people, a business, a government, or just about anything else that makes and spends money.  

To manage your monthly expenses, prepare for life’s unpredictable events, and be able to afford big-ticket items without going into debt, budgeting is important. Keeping track of how much you earn and spend does not have to be hard work, does not require you to be good at math, and does not mean you cannot buy the things you want. It just means that you will know where your money goes, you will have greater control over your organization’s finances. 

Expenses & Revenue 

Your expected revenue should be separated and allocated by each fundraising source. Use past data from your to better understand and predict how much you will raise from each source. 

The second part of an effective budget is your expense budget. This is the tool that you use to determine and predict the costs endured by your organization to fund your various projects.  

This can be broken down into your fundraising, administrative, and program expenses. The combination of your fundraising and administrative expenses is what makes up your chapters overhead.  

On a more granular level, your organization should keep in mind the specific expenses you will encounter, such as:  

• Fundraising expenses can be broken down into your campaign marketing, fundraising event venue or virtual software investment, and fundraising technology tools.  
• Program expenses are those that are necessary to conduct your work in the community. For instance, an organization that encourages music education for underprivileged kids might invest in classroom space, instruments, and music books for their program.  

Fixed expenses are those that are constant from year to year. You can count on this to be the same price from year to year. Meanwhile, variable expenses are those that may change from year to year and cannot be counted on to remain constant. For example, your fundraising expenses might change from year to year depending on the campaigns you are running.  

Fundraising 

Fundraising is exciting. It is the lifeblood of your organization and can serve to raise awareness of a cause and drum up interest among donors.  

Fundraising is also a massive undertaking. It may be your primary means of income as an organization, raising money can be a burdensome, never-ending effort. But it should not. Great fundraising can (and should!) be learned and mastered. Building a fundraising plan is the best way to equip your members, avoid fundraising pitfalls, and create a sustainable organization.  

With individual fundraising (aka personal fundraising) you can ask people within your network, such as friends, family, or colleagues, to donate to your cause. The process allows you to share your story and ask these people to help and support your cause (or whoever/ whatever you are raising money for). This is where an elevator pitch will come in handy! But more on that later. 

There are many was that your organization can collect funds besides individual collection: 

Online donations refer to any donations made online through your website, social media, or on a crowdfunding site.  

Social media has become a booming, online fundraising tactic due to the sheer number of people on various platforms over 3.5 billion people globally, to be exact.  

For example, Facebook allows individuals to run fundraisers on their news feed and for their birthdays. The platform has also released a “Donate Now” button for organization’s Pages. On Instagram, you can share a URL in your Bio that takes your followers directly to your fundraising site/ web page — you can even write a short description of your organization in your bio to pair it with the URL.  

Fundraising Goals 

Start with the end in mind. What’s your fundraising campaign goal? Better yet, what’s your overall goal for this year? For the next three years?  

This number should be rooted in the needs of your organization. To figure out those needs, return to your mission statement. If your fundraising goal answers the question of “How much money do you need?”, your mission answers “What do you need the money for?”  

Defining your mission statement will guide your fundraising “asks”. What do you plan to do with the money from your fundraiser? How will it contribute to your organization’s mission and purpose? Donors will ask these questions, so outline the answers now. 

Importance sticking to a budget 

The point of the budget is to keep you out of debt and help you build a financial future that will give your organization more freedom, not less. So, think about how you want your future to be and remember that keeping to your budget will help you get there. Adding to your debt load, on the other hand, will mean that your organization’s future could be even tighter. 

The Elevator Pitch 

An elevator pitch is a clear, brief message or “commercial” about you. It communicates who you are, what you are looking for and how your chapter brings value. It’s typically about 30 seconds, the time it takes people to ride from the top to the bottom of a building in an elevator. (The idea behind having an elevator speech is that you are prepared to share this information with anyone, at any time, even in an elevator.) At a networking event, you can use your speech to introduce yourself to donors or partners. Around campus, you can pitch your chapter to potential members. Your elevator pitch can even get you into important campus conversations with university administrators. It is important to have your speech memorized and practiced. Rehearse your 30 second elevator speech with chapter leaders or in front of a mirror. The important thing is to practice it OUT LOUD. You want it to sound natural. Get comfortable with what you have to say so you can breeze through it when the time come.

Assignment

Follow along in the chapter strategic planning guide on page 8. 

With the budget template linked in regional summit pre-curriculum website, create a sample budget for the upcoming school year.

Download: Chapter Budget Worksheet